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Why Marx Was Wrong

On the occasion of Karl Marx's 200th birthday, the co-founder of communism has received more than a few positive reappraisals, even from Western leaders. But those arguing that Marx cannot be blamed for the atrocities that his ideas inspired should reexamine his ideas.

STOCKHOLM – The bicentennial of Karl Marx’s birth has occasioned a surge of interest in the man’s work, complete with the unveiling of a statue in his hometown of Trier, Germany.

At a celebration of Marxism in Beijing last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that, “like a spectacular sunrise, the theory illuminated the path of humanity’s exploration of the law of history, and humanity’s search for [its] own liberation.” He would go on to claim that Marx “pointed out the direction, with scientific theory, toward an ideal society with no oppression or exploitation, where every person would enjoy equality and freedom.”

Given that Xi’s words were uttered in “Marxist” China, those in attendance had no choice but to agree with them. Yet, speaking in Trier on the same day, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker offered a somewhat generous appraisal of his own: “Today he stands for things which is he not responsible for and which he didn’t cause, because many of the things he wrote down were redrafted into the opposite.”

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Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to October 2014 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. A renowned international diplomat, he served as EU Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, UN Special Envoy to the Balkans, and Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe.

On the bicentennial of his birth, Karl Marx's way of thinking about the world is still with us, even if Marxism is not.

Marx didn't write down a set of rules to live by, but rather made some economic predictions about the future based on what was known at the time. For a long time he was considered wrong until 2008, when capitalism finally collapsed under its own weight, only to be bailed out by socialism.

The 'failures' of socialism (due to authoritarianism) is more likely to be down to the character of the socialists in question, than to socialism itself.

Bildt, in the traditional spirit of his entirely adapted and flawed argument, continues to conflate the ideas of numerous contemporary and subsequent writers, thinkers and political actors to weave together his assertions. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from, "Countries that embraced capitalism in the twentieth century [that] went on to become democratic, open, and prosperous societies..." is that capitalism breeds unsustainable growth at the expense of unbounded greed, economic oppression, unjustifiable and institutionalized inequality, and misery for the vast majority of their populations. Marx and Engels were to some degree friends and collaborators; but to lump their brains together, to assert that their ideas were identical is wrong. Engels, who's ideas and philosophies are justifiably unknown to the world, underwrote Marx's work. He was an admirer who in his own musings asserted that (under ideal theory conditions) government would become unnecessary. Most of what Marx wrote and espoused continues to be mischaracterized, misused and consequently, misunderstood. In scholarly circles, his work has endured and is considered more prescient today than at any time past. Marx never wrote or created anything that could be mistaken for mature political doctrine or apparatus; he was an economist. Communism was/is not his brainchild. He simply understood the socio-economic trajectory of industrial society better than anyone before him. Contrary to Bildt's distortion, Marx was not opposed to private property (or acquired wealth); he was opposed to unfettered private control of Capital. He was opposed to institutionalized inequality in a productive society. He was opposed to the idea (and the existence) of an economic aristocracy. We all should be.

In many cases, Marx is blamed for all the wrongs of Communism and the ideas behind it. The biggest problem is that people over history took his words and manipulated them to fit their own needs. The Revolution was to happen organically by the people, however, it took professional revolutionaries to put Communism in place. The failure of Marx was to recognize the importance of the party, rather than it withering away, the party played an important part of the implementation of Communism. The strength of the party is the over-riding factor in Communist nations, as it is the party that knows best, but this is not the creation of Marx, rather those that are power hungry and wish to control the population through the party. The writings of Marx are not about Revolution, but about being human and creating a society not based on class. If we are all one class of citizens and have access to the same goods and services, where would crime happen? People steal when they don't have access and people cheat when they feel as if they need more. If we all do our jobs, and are good humans in society, the ideas of Marx would be workable. All that said, it would never happen as we all like our luxuries and there is no way that we are giving that up. This is not the failure of Marx but the failure of humans.

Politicians and pundits polarize the conversation in terms of the past; conservative/liberal, capitalist/communist. Is there some kind of dynamic steady state economics which allows for both competition and compassion? We need a paradigm shift. We live on a planet that is increasingly at its limits to support human life. Either we come to terms with these physical limits or we just end up building a civilization for future alien archeologists to explore.

Marx’s great talent was as a historian, making sense of the economic and social developments that assisted the transition from feudalism to industrialisation.Where Marx went hopelessly wrong was his hubristic presumption to project his historical analysis forward as a set of “scientific principles” and to claim the inevitability of the communist nirvana.His methodology was both flawed and innately contradictory. As the Polish sociologist Ossowski ruthlessly exposed in his book “Class and the Social Consciousness”, Marx could not see beyond the simplist division of labour, that of worker and capitalist, and failed to understand that the modern world of personal skills and training, resulted in an individualist society, as the individual intellectual capital created both a massive expansion on the division of labour, and consequent remuneration. In Marxian terms the current world in dominated by a class petty bourgeois who rent out their intellectual capital for higher salaries, but in the main do not themselves employ others.Those sad people who fail to see the appalling consequences of the application of Marx’s thoughts over the past century, and believe in his relevance in the present, should ponder on his prediction (and hope) that, once the State had faded away, the newly leisure-rich population would be able to take up the traditionally aristocratic pastimes of Hunting, Shooting and Fishing.

State vs people is the dilemma. Marx, and his followers vote for the state, and as them, many in the non-socialist countries. State capitalism or socialism was a failure anywhere: take note that the common word is "state". While individuals disappeared under "the collective" mentality, in open societies, where individuality is praised, creativity prospered.Marx had no clue about anything, less of a all, about economics. Although aware of Walras work, because of the devastating effect on his theory of markets, completeness of markets, preferred to ignoring it. He had no answer to Bohm-Bawerck's critique either. And about economics of systems he rest on the poor research available on his time (according to Hobsbawm...see "pre-capitalist formations" prologue), and about class struggle as trigger of socio-historical change, the motor of his theory of social change, we know now that slavery was never the nucleus of any economic system ever, and that the plague was the reason for the transformation of society from feudal into capitalistic one.

To me, Marx is a very interesting character.His historical analysis makes a lot of sense - history does happen as a consequence of people interacting among themselves and with their environment, while his ideas about what people should do have brought a lot of misery to those who have followed his advice.Basically his understanding of private property was just as flawed as that of the 'hoarders' of today.https://nicichiarasa.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/property-2/

"...history does happen as a consequence of people interacting among themselves and with their environment..."

Your analysis of Marx' theory is very misguided. Marx' theory claims that once private property is abolished people will be free and live a happy life in leisure. According to Marx history has nothing to do with human interaction, it is a constant class struggle only because of private property. So history is a question of private property or collectivism and nothing else! Therefore he also claims that the Capitalist himself is a victim of private property and has nothing to do with the misery of mankind.

Your view on Marx explains the fascination of the many in this character today. Most people today never read Marx and they interpret his theory in whatever way they like! And if someone really read Marx in that case I must assume that this was the only book about economics they ever read and most likely they even didn't understand it.

Marx had written about two things.About the past and about the future.His view of the past was indeed that people had struggled, along class lines, "because of private property". This was his first, and fundamental, error.People didn't struggle 'because' of private property but 'for' private property. Which is something completely different.And this fundamental error also explains his second error. His belief that by abolishing private property it would be possible to avoid future struggle.Private property cannot be abolished. It would mean total dissolution of humanity. Without private property we would become ants. Or bees. That doesn't mean that our present manner of using, or more exactly misusing, property, both private and public, is beneficial for our well being.

The cynical about "Marxists" and leftists is that with their criticism of capitalism, which is certanily allowed, that they believeMarxism would get rid of all bad things in theworld like greed, recession, war, poverty, inequality, pollution etc. and that those bad things are causally determined only with free markets. In contrast all good things must come from Marxism or socialism.So the article is very good but the comments are concerning and show how irrational some in defence of Marxism have become.

Juncker talked about Marx and for instance his description of properties of capitalism. And there us a big difference between Marx and Marxism. It is like making Jesus responsible for all those crusades.

Mr. Bildt’s views – resuscitation of “cold war” propaganda – clearly reflect a superficial mental state that prevails in neoliberal western societies, with grave consequences. Ostrich-ism never helped the ostrich, Mr. Bildt, and unfortunately reality is more Marxian than ever. To anathematize it or excommunicate it will not make it disappear.

His labor theory of value was already wrong when he wrote it down. Value is a matter of supply / demand and marginal utility. This was described by F. Galiani in 1751!

The theory of concentration was also already wrong when he lived. Never has wealth been distributed in so many hands then today. And never existed so many corporations then today. Even in Marx times there were more and more companies and not less.

So I'm not sure what "side" uses and used propaganda more efficiently. That is maybe the ony field were Marxism and communism is more efficiently.

Why is a Picasso more worth then a painting of John Doe? John Doe uses the same canvas, paint and same effort! Why is water for the thirsty more valuable then a shirt? And why is for the freezing a shirt more valuable than water?

The marginaly utility explains why gold is more valuable then copper! It is not only rarer but also a luxury good for jewellery. Human nature is valuing rare and beautiful things more then useful but plentiful things. Sand from Fiji might be rare but not useful and on the contrary a Picasso may not be useful but rare and beautiful.

That is why Marx labor theory of value and materialistic view is completely wrong.

Utopian visions even a century on are hardly likely to be 'correct'. "Capital" remains an impressive critique of its time. It made a significant contribution to the emergence of liberal democracy. Its visions have also been used to legitimise authoritarian polities. Marx did not CREATE either the Soviet Union or the German National SOCIALIST WORKERS Party.

There are many authors like Karl Popper that describe the connection between Platon, Hegel, Marx and the National Socialists. So Marx may not be directly responsible but he has certainly layed the foundations for the creation of those institutions.

You claim that Karl Popper has disproven Marx' dialectical and historical materialism: when and where exactly did he do that? Opponents of Marxism, such as petty-bourgeois politicians and theoreticians, generally hold this 'truth' to be evident, while in fact it is not. Popper only unfolded an ad contrario theorem and nothing more, although he himself liked to claim he'd scientifally disproven Marxism.

Carl, to paraphrase Karl Marx, a specter is haunting Europe in general, and Sweden in particular. No, Carl, it it not the specter of Communism, it is the specter of the metastasizing cancer of Islam. Carl, can I suggest that you read Douglas Murray's book "The Strange Death of Europe - Immigration, Identity, Islam". I feel that you would benefit more by reading this publication rather than Karl's "Communist Manifesto".

Marx was a philosophical theorist who knew nothing of practice. Stalin excused his horrific practice with Marx’s naïve words. Xi’s “sunrise” cloaks his reign in Marx’s false “law of history” as the Chinese people remain unliberated, held fast in Xi’s chains. To cheer Marx is to jeer humanity.

To indicate that Xi Jinping's policies have the foggiest resemblance to anything of Marx betrays a profound ignorance of both. (And I say independently of the question of whether either philosophy or practice has any merit)

So starved Russian peasants would have been unable to rise up against an unjust Czarist order if not for Marx, whereas this was not at all an impediment to French revolutionaries or slave rebellions two thousand years previous under Rome?

If not for Marx, the "elites" onside with (or behind the orchestration of) bloody revolutions in 1917 Russia or 1930s/40s China would simply have reached for the next 'best' thing.

Just by mentioning Marx in this hopeless diatribe of yours doesn't somehow give you or your piece any credibility Mr. Bildt. You are asking people to consider Karl Marx responsible for Stalin and Honecker, but you seem willing to ignore that when Marx was writing the workers were literally chained and kids in Salford were dying in the factories or perishing in the slums. I recommend you focus on people simpler than Karl Marx. Perhaps you can start with ABBA.

Bravo, Petros Diversis. Couldn't agree with you more. I'd add that Herr Bildt's "analysis" is little more than a diatribe, probably direct at EC President Juncker. Perhaps Herr Bildt could do some similar "analysis" about the impact of "democratic" capitalist powers in their imperialism and subjugation of non Anglo-Saxon people. US, Britain and France, alongside Spain, Belgium and Portugal come to mind. Sweden's dissolved a long time ago so I'll leave that one out. Perhaps Herr Bildt finds the medieval class system that continues these days under the rubric of "globalization" so admirable that he has to find Marx a villian. In any case, this article is tripe.

The problem with this commentary, a capitalist apology, is that in assessing Marx's works it focuses only on his predictions. But who in the mid 19th Century could have predicted what we have today? To be fair, Marx should be judged less on his predictions and more on his assessment of the capitalism in his time. When we read Marx on that context we see brilliance in comments that are spot on. Also, as wrong as he was about the dictatorship of the proletariat leading to a just and stateless society, he was prescient in noting that the profit motive would lead to a perverse reductionism, as the very blood and guts of human existence is reduced to the value of one's currency. He was also right about mindless, repetitive work destroying the soul of factory workers. Joseph in Missoula

Herr Bildt says that "Marxism inflicted untold misery on tens of millions of people who have been forced to live under regimes waving its banner".

As a 'conservative' ex-Prime Minister, I'll assume that it hasn't at all occurred to him that his descriptor could be just as easily applied nowadays to that even worse and much more insidious ideology that is neoliberalism, while that is 'presently' continuing to "inflict misery on tens of millions" with many of the sufferers living in those undeveloped nations whose resources western governments continue to exploit and ransack (while at the same time supplying those countries with arms!) with the sort of enthusiasm which was formerly reserved for seventeenth century swashbuckling and 'government sanctioned' merchant ship attacking privateers!

A more general "insight" is that political regimes removed abruptly leave behind a power vacuum that is often filled by demagogues, authoritarians, and bad actors of all sorts. This certainly includes "Marxist" regimes, but numerous examples from the French Revolution to Iraq require explanation other than the failure of Marxist principles.

A naive belief in the "withering of the state" is not even a unique feature of Marxism. If real libertarians were ever to come to power, the disaster might be similar. Maybe the travesty that is the current U.S. government is evidence for this.

As others have pointed out here, the most successful and prosperous nations have socialist checks on the unfettered concentration of wealth. An honest and introspective "celebration" of Marx' bicentennial would include some discussion of his critique of capitalism in addition to enumeration of the atrocities committed in his name.

Marx had no idea how wealth is created. But this failing did not stop him from decrying those who did create it. Their rime: exacerbating class divides whereby the wealth-maker ostensibly exploited hapless employees who voluntarily agreed to produce the goods and services demanded by the public. Marx's convoluted philosophy is based on ignorance and the presumption that redistributing wealth will make everyone equal. Everyone is not equal, and never will be.

The division is between wealth creators - Labour and wealth takers - rentiers. People invest their lioves into equi[ment and production, it is the hanmds of the dead that turn the wheels for us, and were denied the benefits of their production above a minimum by grabbing the 'surplus value' from the sale of their product. It is not a matter of 'equality' but of justice and decency: 'from those who (under unrestarined Chicago market greed) have to those who do not'?

If I remember correctly, it was Marx who said that capitalism would dig its own grave. His language explaining this was rather abstruse, but one could paraphrase him in today's terms: replacing humans with machines may increase one's profits because machines do not require health benefits or a minimum wage, but machines do not buy the product they manufacture either. There needs to be a way to share the machine-generated profits with the replaced workers in order to sell the manufactured goods. Whether you subsidize worker training, worker relocation, or simply pay persons outright, there must be a mechanism of redistribution.

Carl Bildt has more or less put up a straw man account of Karl Marx in order to tear him down. Just his assertion - and it was a blatant and naive assertion at best - that "countries that embraced capitalism in the twentieth century went on to become democratic, open, and prosperous societies." What absolute hogwash. Obviously Bildt hasn't read history in a long while, otherwise he wouldn't be making up stuff as this. Here are some example of countries obviously Bildt has never heard of in his life that adopted capitalism but aren't "democratic", aren't "open" and aren't "prosperous: China. Vietnam. Laos. Cambodia. Burma. Thailand. Malaysia. Indonesia. Ceylon. India. Pakistan. Bangladesh. Need I go on, Bildt? All of this countries have structural and institutional problems and weaknesses, and all are also hideously corrupt. Almost all are illiberal or authoritarian. China is a thorough dictatorship or totalitarian despite having adopted "capitalism". And all have very large proportion of populations are that immersed in structural poverty. So, instead of doing a Francis Fukuyama number, Bildt, perhaps it would be more useful if you were to define (a) capitalism (b) democratic (c) open and (d) prosperous. Let's start here. I'm stunned at such a shallow and biased piece at Project Syndicate given a run. Who's asleep at the wheel?

"But those arguing that Marx cannot be blamed for the atrocities that his ideas inspired should reexamine his ideas."

If we are going to start comparing notes about atrocities being inspired by ideas (as if ideas in their own had some sort of metaphysical teleology, suis generis), why don't we point to the spectrum of atrocities perpetrated by those who arrogated for themselves the role of fighting these ideas -- "Marx's ideas" -- at all cost and in the plenitude of bottomless hypocrisy? I point to Fascism in all of its shades and colors, as well as the barbaric anti-communism of the cold war that gave us the coup against Iran, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Pinochet (and I can go on for paragraphs), along with the massive Military-Industrial complex that has turned war into a profitable and lucrative revenue stream for the so-called defenders of democracy and human rights....

That, and if one wants to dabble just a bit in intellectual honesty, one would also not dismiss the basic fact that where Marx's ideas were given room to sprout and bloom, they have done well (Scandinavia) and where they were met with merciless and pitiless enmity, the result has indeed been dark dictatorship and dystopia (USSR, North Korea, Cuba).

Proposed new title of Carl Bildt's article: "Marxism....without reading Marx."

Chew on this and get back to me: "The Catholic Church has engaged in countless wars, crusades and wrongly executed millions of people. Jesus is clearly to blame because it is HIS IDEAS which the Catholic Church follows."

Logic seems perfectly good to me, don't you agree???

It is clear Mr. Bildt has read nothing by Marx. Not a single quotation, even a cherry-picked quotation, from Marx's thousands of pages of writings. And this his interpretation of history borders on cartoonish.

Okay, I have a quote for you. It’s from the Communist Manifesto by Marx & Engels. Does it serve as an instructional manual for a despotic regime? Judge for yourself:

“Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production...”

There follows a ten point plan that recommends “Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels” (You know what a rebel is? It’s a political opponent) and “Centralisation of the means of communication”.

How about “There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.” You can’t see how the Khmer Rouge (for example) simply took Marx at his word?

They (like Russia and China before them) also took literally his instruction: “Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.” Anyone likely to rebel (say, anyone with too much education) must be shot - that’s what you do with deserters in the army. And whoever’s left must work in the field until they drop dead - from each according to his ability, right?

Do let me know if I’m quoting selectively!

It’s funny how those of us who have actually read Marx - and as a result are horrified - are so often accused of criticising him without reading.

Even funnier, his “scientific analysis” of value and exchange in Capital (which almost no self-described Marxists have ever bothered to read) is in fact utter bunk from start to finish, based on an impossible extrapolation from the Labour Theory of Value into a pseudo-scientific materialist notion of commodity value, so absurd as to not even qualify as “wrong”.

I knew someone would predictably draw from the Manifesto -- this is why in my original post I talked about the 1,000's of pages of Marx's writings and "cherry-picking" quotations. Thank you for falling directly into that trap! Congratulations, you read the Manifesto in college....

Yes, the Manifesto is one of the few places you can find a violent Marx and EVERYONE points to that one short piece. In the VAST corpus of Marx's writing, it is a completely non-theoretical and insignificant piece. It is a POLITICAL piece born of the revolutions engulfing Europe at the time, not "Marxism" as in the THEORY of Marx.

OK, so let's continue to play this game! My turn: I'm going to cherry-pick from the Bible now.

(Revelations 19), Jesus: “And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war”, “His eyes were as a flame of fire”, clothed in a vesture dipped in blood“, and “out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” (Translation: follow me, or you die)

OR:

Jesus: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." — Luke 19:27

Now, I'm going to cut and paste your own words, but just replace Kymer Rouge with Catholic Church or other Christian groups and Marx with Jesus. You said, "You can’t see how the Khmer Rouge (for example) simply took Marx at his word?"

So what? All this proves is that we both can selectively cut and paste from Google searches....

The point is that the OVERARCHING MESSAGE of Jesus is not violence like this, just as the overarching message of Marx is NOT the Communist Manifesto.

Excellent, Mr. Dallas. Spot on counter point to the blithering of Bildt and his minions. Need it also be pointed out that China and Russia are both capitalist countries? It's just that their oligarchy is more obvious than that of, say, the US or its colony Britain.

Oh Mr. Bildt, how wrong you are! There's definitely so much more to Marx than what you are covering in your little "treatise" of his political philosophy, and of course, the usual slender coming from those that never understood his main ideas! The fact that some of those regimes in the past and even today call themselves "Marxist", has really nothing to do with Marx; and yes, his main ideas were completely twisted by these people, attempting to forcibly compress his envisioning of long-term future development of the human society into few decades of enforcing these twisted ideas onto primitive, ignorant societies, definitely not ready for such massive changes. Here's an example of the society without private property and the "state": most of the Indian tribes that were annihilated in North America, by those who had these societal features! What about massive famine events in a number of the Western, non-communist societies, such as Ireland? Really, most of your arguments do not hold water, under a bit more careful scrutiny. I suggest more reading and understanding of what Marx really meant in his work!

What a pathetic ideological piece. There is no indication that the author has ever read anything written by Marx. Too busy serving the interest of capital, I suppose. The author fails to explain, among other things, why Marx thought of private property as the root of all evil and even the very meaning of private property. Abolishing private property is not about denying the 'freedom' of middle-class folks to own a single-family house and an SUV as some American undergrads are led to believe. Marx’s preoccupation with private property concerned the private ownership of the means of production, of capital assets, which allows the ‘free’ entrepreneurs to employ and exploit the labor of the less 'free' propertyless creatures who have to sell themselves piecemeal to survive. This basic social relation, which Marx called ‘capital’, is now as strong and as fundamental to capitalism as it was in Marx’s time. The attempt to sugarcoat that with identity politics and the like should be recognized and fought by those with brains and dignity.

I guess if we were to follow this "logic" we'll have to blame Adam Smith for the gross inequalities of capitalism and the millions of deaths if causes today. And then of course it's should be "obvious" that Milton Freedman is responsible for all the deaths caused by the Chilean coup of 1973.

I forgot to add this quote from last Tuesday's Washington Post. Why the specter of Marx still haunts the world “Educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement that Marx’s basic thesis — that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit — is correct," philosopher Jason Barker wrote for the New York Times. http://tinyurl.com/WashPost-Marx

To blame Marx's wide ranging and at times contradictory works for the totalitarian regimes that embraced his ideas (the Soviet Union banned any non-Bolshevik readings of Marx) to serve their own ends reminds me of this, from Kipling, cited in Francis Wheen's biography of Marx:

"He that has a GospelTo loose upon mankindThough he serve it utterlyBody, soul and mindThough he go to CalvaryDaily for its gainIt his his DiscipleShall make his labour vain"

I totally agree. The world has seen so many 'false prophets' whose words have caused human suffering. Like e.g. Jesus Christ: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) There is no doubt in my mind that such words have directly inspired e.g. The Crusaders, The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda and those people in the USA who murdered young women who had had a legal abortion. We must never cease to unveil all the 'false prophets'.

The problem this critique of Marx is its failure to engage Marx's thought. It reminds me of a US undergraduate economics class in which 95% of the class time is devoted to mainstream political economy (mostly economy) and a fraction of the last class is devoted to Marx and other "heterodox" thinkers; i.e., there is no real coverage of Marx at all. This piece by Bildt captures that 15 minutes of the last class period in economics on Marx perfectly.

Sadly, I couldn't get past this line: "But, of course, it was all rubbish". That's no way to convince me of your argument. It's the kind of 'reasoning' that reeks of assumptions before the facts have been laid out. Belief before facts, to me, is dogma. I couldn't even read this piece. I would suggest a more balanced approach in the future if you'd like people to actually hear what you have to say.

Marx will hold an important place in the history of ideas for the questions he asked rather than the answers he provided. To say he was wrong, in my view, is to completely misunderstand his contribution.

Marx mounted the last comprehensive investigation into the state of human endeavor, while all our 20th century intellectuals have been able to give us are a few sound bytes. Where Marx reached for an explanation of historical processes, our best thinkers today dismiss the problems of historical dynamics by simply declaring "the end of history."

We have run out of ideas at the intersection of politics, history and economics.

That is a very narrow view of what Max ment to the world, and what his writing was about.

You can't just say that Maxism have cause a lot of hurt in by the hands of Lenin, and Stalin, or in countries like China, or some of the sub sarahn countries in the 70's and 80's, and even today. And also in Cuba....

You also have acknowledge that the capitalist system as it's being managed today, make it impossible for a growing group of people to have a decent life due to the fact that a small group of people own not only the production system, but also the housing, and the same people and politicians are not doing enough to build public housing, which would make it possible for people to have a normal life, without having to have two jobs.

So yes, maybe Maxism has caused alot of pain and suffering, but at the other end of the scale we see that capitalism is doing exactly the same, and you Sir, is part of the problem.

And let us not forget, Max wrote a book, I doubt anyone heard him tell people to make it into an religion.

Mr. Carl, I see from your (unjust article) that you never mentioned anything about the natural and the made enemies against any new thinking of whatever, forget about Marx. You also, didn't show how they distorted the thinking of Marx or any other one on the one hand and those who worked well and effectively in making its implementation a failure, whether from the outside or from within the same society or withing the same party, on the other hand.

To be neutral, you must show how free of, or neutral, anti-forces actually paved or destroyed the way for the the new thinking is establishing itself on the ground.

"...the countries that embraced capitalism ...went on to become democratic, open, and prosperous societies."Nonsense - the vast majority of prosperous Western societies have a strong socialist bent designed to mitigate the effects of run-away capitalism. Maybe you have heard of a country called Sweden where the top marginal tax rate is 60%? Those that don't push this hard enough have runaway inequality which leads to unimaginably horrible things like Donald Trump inside the White House.

The author overlooked the time in which Marx wrote his treatise, of French Napoleonic Wars, Austrian Hapsburg Empire and the newly industrialized British monarchy from the perspective of Charles Dickens' lower classes. Marx's ideal borrowed from the Spartan property-less communes that gave rise to Communards, all of which can easily put down as outdated today retrospectively, without hindsight vision.